


Cold Burn

by aarid



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Spoilers for Season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 11:20:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6982621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aarid/pseuds/aarid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sharp intake of breath isn't voluntary, nor is the stinging in his chest, or the tears that cloud his vision, or the lack of a dark-gloved hand on his shoulder and kind smile picking him up off the ground. He never asked for Pyrrha Nikos. And he never asked to lose her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Burn

**Author's Note:**

> it's been literally over three years since i wrote fic for anything at all and i've never written for jaune so uh. bear with me.

There had been a service, as much as there could be. No body, nothing remaining of the girl he'd reached too late. For him, he'd laid a marker at the edge of Vale; a place he could reach, a place he could visit. Every time so far, he's sat in silence, thinking of her. Most of the time he cried. Sometimes he would manage to smile.

It's the coldest day to date since the day he met her. In a way, it's comforting in the face of loss; winter is the one thing Jaune can't associate with red hair and green eyes. The silence that the still air after snowfall brings is so deafening that today, the words finally come.

Jaune lays a picture of Pyrrha against the snow-dusted flowers he'd left yesterday. He stares at it, studies it like he's terrified of losing her face, and after a moment, he smiles.

"Remember when you said that you liked me because when I met you, I didn't even know your name?" Jaune's voice comes out awkward and high, as if he were trying to talk to her for the first time. In a way, that's what it feels like. "You were so special, and everybody knew it... and there was me. I didn't even know you existed. I was just an idiot guy, hitting on every girl I could like a total moron, and you didn't think I was gross for it."

He never would understand it, honestly. He gave Pyrrha no reason to love him, no reason to think that he was anything more than the pathetic, lying cheat he was. And yet...

His voice returns hesitant, waiting for a voice to cut in and tell him he's wrong. "You found me on purpose in the forest, right?" She'd thrown her spear with excellent accuracy, and she'd captured every part of him right then and there. He'd just been too blind to see it.

"Everything you did from the minute you saw me was something that made me better. You helped me figure out how to use my aura, and you trained me every day. You told me I could be a great leader. You believed in me when no one else did, even when I was being a huge jerk." The words feel heavy on his throat for how lightly they fall from his lips. He figures that what gets out is all that got far enough. Maybe if he were stronger, he could say it with the weight it needs. 

Maybe he would have been able to say more of this earlier. "I didn't deserve it, but you thought I did. You thought I could be anything. You put more into me than I put into myself."

Jaune's fingertips brush the surface of the photograph, ghosting over Pyrrha's cheek. The irony of wasted time isn't lost on him.

"I never really got to explain that you were the best friend I ever had," Jaune manages to croak out to the cold. The puff of steam dissipates before he thinks it'll reach her. "I showed so much more of myself to you than I did to anybody else, and you were..." His throat tries to close up on him. He's familiar with this part. "You were just happy to have me. You just wanted to b-be there with me."

The sharp intake of breath isn't voluntary, nor is the stinging in his chest, or the tears that cloud his vision, or the lack of a dark-gloved hand on his shoulder and kind smile picking him up off the ground. He never asked for Pyrrha Nikos. And he never asked to lose her.

"I became a better version of myself every day I spent with you, Pyrrha Nikos. I learned that it's better to be myself. I learned that it's better to stand up for what I care about. I learned that I can do more if I do it for other people." There is nothing even in his tone now; the air threatens to freeze the streams of tears on his cheeks.

"... Everybody knew Pyrrha Nikos, and everybody knew they weren't good enough for her." Jaune's voice gets louder with each phrase, growing in icy heat as grief clutches the deepest part of him. "Even now, they all know that. But you thought I was different, you thought that just because I accepted you--the real you--that I was good enough.

"But you were wrong."

He's never heard the voice that rips out of him as the words escape from somewhere Jaune has avoided for far too long. His voice is thick like black tar, and he can't breathe around the loss.

"You're gone, Pyrrha, and I can still feel you. I can feel what you did for me, what you made me into, but I... I still wasn't enough. I was never enough for you--I couldn't help you, I couldn't save you." _You don't have to do this!_

The ground is too cold. The grave is too empty. She deserved more than this. She deserved more than him. "The world lost Pyrrha Nikos, and for what? You saved me, for what?! I wasn't enough to keep you! I wasn't enough to fight by your side!"

The snow burns against the fist Jaune slams into it. His knuckles hurt. His arm hurts. It doesn't detract from the hundredth time his heart has shattered this week.

Finally, silence fills the air again. A desperate part of him pleads with it to give way to Pyrrha's voice.

"... No matter what I do... I don't think I ever will be."

And for several long minutes, Jaune lets that quiet admission hang in the air. The truth, laid bare before him and the seasons. He's never considered himself enough for Pyrrha, despite how much she trusted him. It wasn't that she was put on a pedestal; that was never it, and he would never do that to her. None of this was ever on Pyrrha.

But Jaune has always, more than anyone else in the world, been painfully aware of his shortcomings.

"... But I'm gonna try." The words come before the feeling. His chest starts to swell, and the tears roll again; he crumples over his knees, bowed before the marker, and his voice becomes desperate again.

"I promise, Pyrrha. I'm not gonna give in. I can't let everything you did be in vain. I'm gonna lead my team, I'm gonna help my friends, and we're gonna save Remnant. You won't be--n-no, I won't _let_ you be disappointed in me. I'm never gonna be someone worth the effort you made, but I'll never waste what you gave me."

It hurts. It hurts to move, to be, but Jaune rises to his feet.

"I owe you _everything._ I promise, I'll make you proud."

It doesn't make it any better, to promise. But it gives him a goal, and a shove from behind, however rough, is better than laying against the cold, hard earth and giving up.


End file.
